Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Near Death Experiences, Telepathy & the Multiverse. An Astrophysicist Explains Infinite Versions of You May Exist | Dr. Charles Liu

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Dr. Charles Liu (astrophysics professor and host of The LIUniverse podcast) joins Mayim Bialik's Breakdown to reveal the physics of consciousness, time, & the multiverse!We explore the biggest scientific mysteries humanity is facing today:- How scientists are beginning to take disclosure into their own hands to gather evidence that could actually prove the existence of nonhuman intelligence- Why information about nonhuman intelligence is being released in such a confusing and dramatic way, and whether governments are intentionally communicating this way- Why there's still no scientific proof Earth has been visited by nonhuman intelligence, but why there's nothing irrational about thinking seriously about aliens- Could AI ever become conscious? What would scientists actually need to observe before saying it has consciousness?- What consciousness really is, the different levels of consciousness, whether consciousness creates us or we create consciousness, and why understanding how the brain processes information from our five senses may be the key to solving it- What death actually is, what collective consciousness could imply, and whether nonspeaking autistic individuals may be accessing reality in fundamentally different ways- Similarities between near death experiences and DMT, including the mystery of ego death- Whether there's something beyond memory that connects us to our past- Why time may not be as linear as we experience it, and how our brains shape our perception of time- The Many Worlds theory, why multiple universes may mathematically exist, the new scientific frameworks researchers are developing, how entropy could unlock these ideas, and what time travel between universes would actually require- Why scientists who are absolutely certain they're right may actually be hurting science itself- A scientific and philosophical approach to understanding people who claim they've been abducted by aliens- How we determine what truly has consciousness, and why that question affects how we should treat AI, animals, and potentially other forms of intelligence- Why humans experience romantic attraction and what may actually be happening beneath the surface when we feel drawn to another person- Physiology behind people who appear unusually sensitive to changes in entropy- Evidence, controversies, and scientific questions surrounding biofield therapy and whether intention could influence cancer cells- Why humans vary so dramatically in their physiology, and how that should change the way we approach trauma treatment- Why religion may have been a necessary social technology for human evolution- Why Godzilla reflects humanity's attempt to understand overwhelming forces like nuclear war and other events beyond our control- How much of reality is objectively shared, and how much is filtered through our own unique perceptionsIf you enjoy conversations that challenge your understanding of reality while staying grounded in science, philosophy, and evidence, this episode is for you!All the Buzz, None of the Booze — get 15% off your first order at http://kavahaven.com/breaker Head to https://Superpower.com and use code BREAK at checkout for $50 off your membership. Get 150+ biomarkers tested, a personalized health plan and on-demand care team. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpodGo to https://helixsleep.com/breakdown to receive up to 30% off your Helix mattress.Visit https://drinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN and get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3 + K2 in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order.Go to https://tidd.ly/4uVltMe and use the code MAYIM15 to get 15% off orders of $200 or more.Dr. Charles Liu’s podcast, The LIUniverse: https://theliuniverse.podbean.comPre-Order Dr. Charles Liu's latest book, (Super) Natural Science: The Real Science of Superheroes, Mythic Creatures, and the (Sci-Fi) Universe: https://a.co/d/08pHA0SpOther recent books by Dr. Charles Liu:- The Cosmos Explained: A History of the Universe from its Beginning to Today and Beyond: https://a.co/d/00qyXcOG- The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book: https://a.co/d/0gu4Fl5zSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The equations of quantum mechanics predict that there can exist a multitude of universes. Whether the Schroederger's cat is living or not living produces another universe. Quantum physics predicts nature very well. What else can it predict that we have not yet discovered? Einstein's theory of relativity predicted existence of black holes. Every single particle in the universe, every time it does a quantum thing, a new universe is spawned. Dr. Charles Liu is an astrophysicist whose research tackles the biggest questions in the universe. The problem of consciousness is one of the most significant in all of philosophy.

That's why Bruce Grayson started his research. He said, I had a patient tell me the tie I was wearing yesterday when she was in a coma. Right. And what's wrong with that? We have this thing called quantum entanglement, which does not depend on how close we are or how connected we are to something at any given moment. But see, that's the whole point. These unknowns fill me with wonder and joy. Miami-Bi Alex's breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep. We can't tell you how excited we were to hear that Helix wanted to partner with us.

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Today we've got a very special treat. I would say we are talking to one of the most open-minded astrophysicists we have ever encountered. Dr. Charles Liu is a professor of astrophysics at City University of New York's College of Staten Island. He's also an associate with the Hayden Planetarium and Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He's the host of the podcast, The Luniverse, with Dr. Charles Liu, a good friend of Neil deGrasse Tyson's, and we have been waiting to speak to Dr. Liu for so long. We're going to start our conversation with asking him to explain what science can't explain. But most of the episode is spent exploring what science has yet to understand. We ask him about near-death experiences.

universal theories of consciousness, and quantum mechanics. He is so creative, so playful, and also so open to thinking outside of the box. We also touched on the many worlds theory, energy and the body's energetic system. What memory holds? Is there a notion of a soul and more? One of the things I love about this episode is Dr. Liu is open to hearing Jonathan and my perspectives that we have gathered from years interfacing with our our community and speaking to a variety of specialists. And he entertains and helps us explain possible theories for everything from love to post-traumatic stress syndrome to is time not linear.

What a pleasure to welcome in person, Dr. Charles Liu. Break it down. Thank you, Dr. Bialek. What a pleasure to be here. I promise we will call you. I like calling you Chuck. That feels appropriate. I would love that very much. We had Neil deGrasse Tyson on. We've had him on twice. And the last time he was here, he was a real killjoy. Because we were talking about aliens. And obviously, I get it, right? Physicists are not in the position to say aliens exist.

It's not what you go to school for and training for. But I wonder if we could sort of as a starting place, maybe you can sort of help us, because you are known to be very playful and very creative in the way that you talk about and communicate, you know, some very comprehensive. complicated concepts, especially in the field of astrophysics. Where are you in terms of the current climate, right, of our political state, our conversations about disclosure? What are we seeing and what might we see? From the overall general scientific point of view, we can say with certainty that there is still no scientifically solid evidence that extraterrestrial life has ever

come to Earth while we have been around and sent you. That is 100% still true. Nothing that has been disclosed or has been shown or anything like that constitutes the kind of rigorous scientific proof or even evidence that would either confirm or refute extraterrestrial life coming here to Earth. You're kind of being a killjoy too. No. However. No. How is going to say? However is the part. However is the part, right? I am always happy to see evidence. I want people to show that evidence. And I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility that it has happened, but the evidence

isn't there, right? Now, that is the main issue. Those of us who believe that extraterrestrial life exists generally are sure that it's out there somewhere, but whether it's here or if it's possible. plentiful or that kind of thing, we need the evidence. That's what makes us want to feel good about that. But the imagination, the way we think, there is nothing wrong with going beyond and to consider. Everything as mundane as Star Trek or the wild and crazy things that many speculative fiction writers have written about in the future and things like that, a three-body problem.

All cultures, every thought tradition has imagined the existence. of extraterrestrial life. So I have no problem talking about it and thinking about it and going, oh, cool. The main issue is just to know the difference between what is scientific and what is non-scientific and what, frankly, is pseudo-scientific or fake. Right. And I think that that's where a lot of people are getting overwhelmed with misinformation, disinformation. And the fact is we're in an era where information is available in ways that looks very reliable. You know, I encounter this with my mother who will send me things. And she'll say, can you believe this?

You know, the pig jumping on a trampoline. And I'll have to, you know, inform her. Right. I don't believe that. But it is enjoyable. But I think that one of the things that is confusing for a lot of people is, you know, we do have this notion of the government is releasing files.

And we talked about this with Neil. And I was kind of like, we don't need to be dramatic about it. If you have a body, show it to me. If you have, if there's a chemist who has, you know, analyzed whatever, I don't care if it's silica-based, like whatever is going on, I want to be shown definitive proof that this is not of this world. And this is what I think we kind of, you know, get confused about, or at least, you know, we sometimes have disagreement about. You know, having one person who says, I've seen it is not the same as presenting it.

Is there drama being inserted for, you know, like political effects or just dramatic effects? Like, what is like, just show me all of it. Do you think we can't handle it? Because it used to be like, is this a security threat for us to realize like, oh, my God, there's aliens. But I think we're a little bit past that. I feel like there's something going on with the way information is being delivered that I'm curious if it makes you feel one way or the other about what might come.

That's a great point. And I look back in history of all the different kinds of things. that were mysterious, whether they're aliens today or whether they were ghosts or demons or witches centuries ago, anytime someone wanted to manipulate the environment or the people for their own personal whatever, what they would do is to say, oh, I got something that I know that you don't. And then they make it mysterious and unusual. And you know much better than I do how the human brain works, right? We assess evidence in a way that's very unscientistic. Sure. Right? And the whole point, when Galileo first published this thing, Il Sagittor in 1623, I think it was, explaining, look,

there is philosophical truth and then there is empirical truth. And I choose to follow the empirical stuff for now. I'm not saying that there isn't an absolute thing like the beauty of a tree. You're the ethics of a rock, but instead I will for now try to study this tree in this rock by its color, its size, its properties, its materials, its composition, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So that's how we, fortunately, in the past four centuries, have become able to assess information, more than just by taking someone's word for it or seeing it printed and then like interpreting in our head, but actually seeing something.

And so what you've just said is right on, right? Show a. Let us see it and let us evaluate it the way that Galileo told his Catholic church oppressors. We recently spoke to D.W. Posulka and Dr. Posulka, you know, talks about how for all of human history, we've reported things that we can't understand. And depending on the kind of cultural epoch that we find ourselves in, you know, we find these explanations for the things that we can't yet explain or that we don't yet understand, right? And, you know, you've talked a lot about zombies and monsters and I was thinking about, you know, Godzilla, right? And what you've talked about. And, you know,

it hadn't occurred to me. Like, we do. We create science fiction in particular to deal with the fears that we're having as a society. Absolutely. So can you speak a little bit to Godzilla as an example, right, of a cultural moment. Yeah. That needed a, a village. a savior. Can you talk a little bit about how aliens might fit into that framework? Wow. Great question and super awesome. It totally does relate back to religious studies. I told you my eldest daughter, Hannah, did study religious studies in addition to the classics. And what she has told me, and I hope I processed it correctly, is that our definition of religion in the United States or in the Western civilization that we're used to right now is extremely.

extremely limited. We've always tried to box in other people's religious ideas and spiritual connections in what we thought religion was. But if you look actually beyond on the whole spectrum of how people experience or manifest spirituality, it is indeed that sort of something is unknown. And we ascribe it to something we don't understand. And how do we do that? Well, let's put it on something else we don't understand. It's just beyond us. But it's not always, say, in our tradition, beyond us forever, right? There is this all-knowing, omniscient set of deities or single deity or whatever where they know everything and we don't and we never will. But rather it's like there is stuff that we don't understand, but it's okay. And there will come a time

when we do understand if that is our destiny. But even if we don't understand it, we just describe it to, well, you know, that's how it goes, you know, and that's where you go. And then what happens is that as time went on, people were thinking, well, maybe I can influence things. Maybe I can hack the universe, right? Maybe I can change the odds in the favor of me if I can try to access that sort of thing that's more awesome than I am. And then concepts of prayer, concepts of sacrifice, concepts of that kind of thing come into play. And then from there, The ideas evolve further when you have a government or when you have an authority and they wish to find some way to exert that authority beyond what we might be able to see on a daily basis,

eating, sleeping indoors and things like that. And now let's just invoke that and say, you, if you listen to me or these documents as I have interpreted them, I can give you a chance to beat the odds or improve your lot in this life or if this life sucks in some future. And so that's sort of the evolution of how religion has become this sort of social activity. And there are plenty of scientific papers too that have described the possibility of religion as a necessary part of human evolution. That we being biological creatures, we are natural. but we don't understand everything.

And so we need to have something to explain something that we might consider supernatural at the time. And you said it really well. We're past that in many ways now. We don't need you and authority to tell us, trust me, we have this special information and we're going to dramatize it and exploit you from it or, you know, profit off of you or entertain you with it. we can handle it and we are okay and you know that right now the American Astronomical Society is meeting as we record here and I was there at that meeting and I will be there again in a little while and it has been such a joy to see everybody talking about different kinds of ways that we're studying the universe and just saying you know the common theme we don't know and that's why we're doing this

You know, we're not waiting for someone to tell us or to inform us what secret information they have. We don't know. So we're going to go find it. And that's what makes us feel much better, more, even more able to hack the universe to some extent. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Kava Haven. What if instead of giving something up, you found a better option? A lot of us reach a point where we still want that ritual of like having a drink. We want to relax.

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I mean, look, it's the basis of every great Marvel movie and even D.C., you know, or not movie, but like the comic books. Talk to us about Godzilla. Godzilla plays right into all of this because we want to make tangible something that is feels beyond our control that feels not natural, right? And so when nuclear weapons were first being tested and of course Japan had been the target of nuclear weapons and thousands of people died and there were still at that time, even many people who were sick and the recovery was still long. The folks who made the original Godzilla in 1954 were thinking, you know what,

we are creating something that nature abhors. And so Godzilla was the way of saying, if we mess with this unknown stuff, then the unknown stuff is going to mess with us. Right. you're familiar, of course, with Blue Oyster Cults version of Godzilla, right? History shows again and again, nature points out the folly of me. And Godzilla was that response saying, you know what, if you guys keep doing this nuclear stuff, then nature will return and try to restore that.

The original Godzilla, though, was really also a very personal movie. You see it and you're going, oh, these are humans and they're dealing with stuff. And so it was very subtle. As time went on, though, this creature became so iconic that you wound up with more and more of Godzilla being that savior figure, right? There was a famous Godzilla versus the smog monster where human smog was creating this disaster. And so Godzilla had to defeat that person. And, well, person, that monster. Yeah, entity.

Right. We have other, like, slightly smaller versions of Godzilla, the toxic Avenger, which was a silly movie, but, you know, a fun, meaningful movie about that kind of thing. You say the Gallum, again, a, when the earth rises and says, you know, not so fast, you guys, right? There's all these different ways of us pulling these super creatures, superheroes and so forth, into solving our problems. A lot of these examples, and, you know, I'd say even from, you know, religious traditions like Judeo-Christianity going back thousands and thousands of years, there were, you know, interfaces with other entities or beings. You know, one of the examples that Dr. Posulka talked to us about, you know, this notion of some of the prophets visions, right? Ezekiel's vision of this like. It's like a wheel, but it's like a chariot. It's like it's got eyeballs. Like what? even are we talking about? And, you know, and in the Jewish tradition, you know, those prophecies came from sleep, from dreams, from like, let's go into a state. It wasn't like, oh, I was walking down the street to like go to the market and I saw this. It was, I'm going to put myself in a state to receive this information. But one of the things that I'm so intrigued about when we talk about aliens is how much this notion has entered people's homes and their bodies, right? Like, there are not, I mean, I can think of some X-Men examples, right, where there's an embodiment,

right? Or an absorption of powers. Sure. But I'm also so curious, what is it about this time we're living in, right? That is leading to this narrative, right? That they're coming into our homes and they're taking us up. And, I mean, you know, you've heard the reports. And we spoke to someone who had an alien abduction where four people witnessed, witnessed this.

and now he's able to summon lights and he takes thousands of people. So while it hasn't been scientifically studied to the rigor of undeniable evidence, you have firsthand accounts of multiple people with their cell phone footage. You're like, what the hell is this blinking light that he seems to summon?

What's going on? That's actually very complicated on multiple steps, right? I'll address one point first, and that is this person was abducted by aliens. Okay. In that person's reality, within his mind, it is philosophically completely possible that he was abducted by aliens. I've been wanting to ask you, as a brain specialist, right? It's been a minute, but yes. Yes. Like how much of our realities are really shared objectively and how much of our realities are actually within us. Is there a percentage? I don't know. I mean, they may. I don't have that stat. But I think that, you know, one of the things that he's talking about Chris Bloodsoe here, you know, one of the things is

what is happening when other people are videotaping and witnessing like what, what are we actually talking about? And we know that there's a lot of ways that leaders can be very persuasive. Yes. You know, and there's a lot about mentalism in here. Like I don't, I don't know. Right. Right. See, Uri Geller, if you remember this name, right, became very famous as a mentalist. Johnny Carson, who had him on, he was a stage magician himself at one point. And so there's a famous episode where Johnny Carson brings Uri Geller on and they were going to talk about stuff. But then Johnny specifically arranged tests and things that he knew he could easily do using stage illusions and asked to see.

if Yuri was doing anything beyond that. And Yuri could not do any of his mentalist activities, anything, anything, including the stuff that was supposedly testimonially confirmed by investigators. But to your point about charismatic leaders and so forth, that did not change his popularity. In fact, it increased it because the people who wanted to believe wanted to know that he was one of them, a human who was fallible. And so their belief structure simply changed to accommodate the fact that the evidence was refuted. So these are the kinds of things that can happen. When you have the cell phones, okay, and you see lights coming on, someone like Johnny Carson

would have told you, I can do that. You know, especially these days with remote controls, with anything like that, you can, I could, I can, you know, launch a spacecraft over there by tapping something on my phone, right? And is that magic? Arthur C. Clark famously said sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And so it's not a unnatural thing at all. And so if we humans are believing or thinking or seeing something, it might be as real, shall we say, as the so-called objective reality, which may or may not exist philosophically, even from the physicist's point of view. from the early philosophers, where they believe that the only important things were ideas, right?

The actual, this is the anti-Galileo thing where empirical was important for him. They would say, no, these things crumble into dust, but what matters are ideas, you know, philosophical things that matter. Emmanuel Kant called them the things in themselves. And so if ideas are filtered through our senses being heard or being read from somebody into our own brains and we process them separately, my sense of reality is going to be a little different from yours. It's going to be a little different from yours. And if we don't know, unfortunately, scientifically, what percentage of it is different, we could wind up with that kind of thing. He really could have, in his reality, have been abducted or probed or. or just brought off for a cup of coffee or something.

You know, we will never know because that's not our reality. But then when he shares that reality with the rest of us, then we absorb what portions there are. And then all these other when thousands of people are seeing lights and so forth, if those things are not in their heads, but in some sort of shared reality, then what is the process that created those lights? We sort of have an agreement, you know, about the things that are true, the things that are possible.

And I think, you know, one of the things that we're interested in, you know, is how blurry can you make that line? And what does that mean to say that someone had an experience that is so flushed out and so real to them, so concrete? You know, what could it be that we just don't see that way, right? I mean, that's the other possibility. Like, when you meet people who are deeply spiritually connected, And you're like, gosh, I don't know. It's not really me, but like I get that it's for them. You know, what does that mean to have a sort of shared reality?

Yes, and with all reverence to science who we want to explain everything, there's a history of science saying things are absolutely true or impossible that then they slowly start. 100%. So there's this, not skepticism of science, but an apprehension, I think, to not have mystery, wonder or an explanation. Radio waves, right? I mean, any of those things, who was at Lucille Ball, who had a filling in her tooth, and she started hearing voices, and people were like, you're losing your mind. No, she was picking up frequencies. I mean, I have lots of other examples. Many examples. And what I would say is that as a scientist, I want the skepticism. Yeah. When my colleagues state

with some sort of unequivocal certainty, this proves X. It is my impulse as a scientist to say, no, it proves that X might be true, show me more, and I want to understand more. It is, in fact, in my opinion, based on my reading of history, the people who are using science as that same kind of edict saying, this is, it is so with absolute knowledge,

and confidence that they're the ones that are abusing science just as much as, say, despotic people are abusing religion or dogma or anything like that. So I don't like that either. And so I actually like to draw that distinction. I think you said it really well, that there's this boundary, and there might be some fuzz

between something that's scientific and that's not scientific, right? But I feel that there is something clear between scientific and non-scientific. And the problem is that people will abuse it in both sides. Right. You remember, of course, that in the heyday of communism as it was practiced in Europe in the late 20th century, shall we say, atheism was the point, right? The Albanian government... Well, it was a fanatical atheism. Destroyed all the churches because they didn't want that. Of course, Marx said that religion is the opiate

of the masses, which has some grain of truth to it, but is not absolute also. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. If religion leads you to leave a wholesome life that helps others, that you care about communicating and being nice to people, that's great. But religion is like that. Science is like that, where people will abuse them one way or another. So if indeed, I would exhort everyone that if indeed someone says,

it is scientifically confirmed and sure. That's actually a sign. That's a warning sign that it's not science. And this guy is trying to pull something on you. Correct. You can have a null hypothesis, but then you have to prove it. That's right.

It's 100% true. This is maybe a great place to suggest an approach, meaning that a lot of time on the podcast, we're speaking to people from different areas, some in meditation practices, some who have had near-death experiences, and have had visions of things that they couldn't possibly explain any other way. Some people who are just super into science fiction and science fiction ideas or ideas about how the future will go,

maybe you can help us say, based on the scientific understanding right now, how probable are some of these things, are there explanations, or where might we just need more information? I would be happy to try to address some of those points. Amazing. This is how we're going to enter it is non-human intelligence, right? So when we talk about, for example, aliens or we talk about UAPs or UFOs, what we may be talking about is some other entity intelligence force that we may not be able to perceive. Ah, if that's so, how do we prove it? See, it is very easy to imagine. that such a thing is true, right? We humans are great at imagination. And I hope we stay great at imagination

because we're about to get with technological revolution, the ability to get the answer to anything with a swipe of the finger. Is he the one? Sorry. Yeah, right. And you'll get an answer, right?

Whatever program you ask is he the one is going to say yes or no? Or maybe or Outlook Hazy, try again. But you'll get an answer. and it will be up to us not just to evaluate whether that answer is correct or incorrect, but to ask the right question so that when we get an answer, it means something. So this is one of those things that if we talk about, say, extraterrestrial or non-human intelligence, okay, here's how you go.

Right now there is no evidence that there is other kinds of intelligence that are influencing us except in the ways that we would like to imagine that we're influenced. Many of us think that, for example, we're not the only species that has consciousness, right? There's clear evidence, elephants, dolphins, dingoes in the Australian outback. They all express or show traits outwardly that clearly seem like conscious thought or reasoning to us. Awareness with choice, right? is awareness with choice. And the problem is we can't actually go in and ask them, hey, are you actually aware and are you choosing to do this? Because all we can see,

all we can perceive from either our eyes or our scientific instruments is what they present outward into our shared existence. And so we are ascribing that information to them. The problem of consciousness is, of course, one of the most significant in all of philosophy, never mind neuroscience or science in general, right? When I am talking into this microphone, is this microphone conscious? Does it know? Or what are the gradations? Is this microphone more or less conscious than this table or the pair of my glasses, right?

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There are many people who, for example, make choices on their lives, what they'll use in their daily lives, what they'll eat and things like that, based on how much consciousness they think is in the things that they are using or eating or whatever, right? Are we daily making, whether we're conscious of it or not decisions about how much consciousness were willing to eat and how much were not, right? In Native American tribes, there was a tradition amongst some tribes that hunted the buffalo, the American bison. They revered the buffalo because in this grassland, this was the thing that gave them all kinds of things, sustenance, life, materials, fuel, everything. So they were loath to kill them and knew that the buffalo

spirit was powerful, but at the same time they needed to. And so, they were loath to kill them. And so they were, So what I was told by a colleague of mine many years ago who studied this said that the tradition was that they would offer a prayer to the Buffalo Spirit, a request, say, hey, guys, hello Buffalo Spirit, and they have this whole crowd of Buffalo, you know, thousands and thousands of and say, hey, we kind of need some stuff. Are you willing to let us do this? And then they would wait. and if a buffalo, a single one or a couple, straight away from the main herd, then they would say, oh, you are offering these creatures to us. Thank you. And then they would go hunt and kill those buffalo and use them. And then they would say, hey, we promise, you know, we're not going to take this gift for granted. So they would eat the meat. And then they would hand the hides and they would use the sinews for this and that. And then the buffalo chips, of course, after they all left, this was the fuel they left. So,

That was the way that that culture dealt with the consciousness problem. It just seems that like our current consciousness problem is on whether or not there is a higher consciousness or an extraterrestrial consciousness leading us back and forth. So this is how I would approach it from the scientific point of view in trying to understand the currently unscientific feelings. One of the notions of consciousness that, you know, we're most intrigued by. And look, there's a lot of there's a lot of. there's a lot of anecdotal reports, which I know is not, you know, it's not data. That's right. You know, it's like an end of one.

And even then, you know, it's, you know. But I think that there is this notion of, you know, and I think in the plainest terms, you know, is consciousness fundamental or is it something that exists and essentially gives birth to us, right? And so if consciousness is something that is fundamental as sort of a building block, then in theory, you could see why something. people would say my consciousness was no longer in my physical body and I was able to observe things that were next door to where my body was laying on a gurney. Well, so. And this is, you know, Dr. Bruce Grayson, the psychiatrist, you know, from UVA's Department of Perceptual

Studies, you know, this is what they've studied there for decades and decades, right? How do we explain, right, situations where consciousness seems to not be bound to this vessel? And, you know, every spiritual tradition says, you know, you're here for Earth school. This is the meat suit you're wearing. And the example I give is when, you know, when my father passed away, it was so clear to me. That wasn't him. You know, like I was looking at the vessel. But when we speak to people who, you know, die and come back and we're talking like,

Cho Chung, you know, people who are dead, flatlined. Do the thing again? Cho Chong. they often come back with very elaborate and specific descriptions of what many physicists would say sounds like a plane of consciousness, right? It's all just zeros and ones and we're like, it's this beautiful plane. And if you do DMT, you'll see it, right? It's the Matrix Code. It's all these apparently Japanese characters.

I don't know. So can you frame consciousness for us in this way in terms of your understanding? Let me try. Okay. As far as consciousness being this universal thing from which we arise, I do not know of any scientific way that that has been confirmed or otherwise effectively tested. There are theories, though, that suggest versus confirmed. I think there's like a nice distinction there. That's a great point. When scientists refer to a scientific theory, it means one that is refutable, something that you said that can be tested. but when you test it, instead of being refuted, it is confirmed, repeatedly over and over again, right?

That's a scientific theory. A non-scientific theory is one that you cannot test, that you cannot prove. I often like to say my favorite non-scientific theory is true love conquers all. I can never prove that, but I still choose to live by it, and I think it's true, right? You're a silly man. I am, aren't I? I am. But my wife is such as we. My kids are awesome and I feel very fortunate. So from the point of view of a scientific theory, no such scientific theory has ever been developed. All right. Now, what we do know about the theory of consciousness, you probably know better.

Please, if you have information, inform me because I've been hoping to learn about neuroscience from you in this conversation. Okay. Consciousness, right, has numerous levels, even within our brains, right? One aspect of consciousness is very, to my understanding, very holistic in that, even though I am just looking with my eyes here, I know what it looks like from that corner. I do. But until you turn your head, until I turn my head, the simulation doesn't produce that. Right. Yeah. Precisely. So let's say I am on the gurney. Okay. My heart has stopped, but there's still neural activity going on. Sure. My brain. How about an hour later though?

I don't know. Right. Because we've got a guy who was zipped up in a bag. Right. And he was gone for two hours. Yeah. And on a fluke, they revived him. That's fantastic.

It's crazy. Good for this person. I love that. Can you imagine in those two hours what went on inside that? Well, I can't imagine. I know what he came back with. Right. Yeah.

And let's talk about that. Guess what? Loves the answer. Really? Yes. Light of the world shine on me. That's right. Yeah.

Here's the story. With that. When he came back and saw ones and zeros and matrices and so forth, what about, how do you see in the matrix? That's a good question. We didn't know. What about what year was this? What about was he a computer scientist? No.

No. What about- And all the people on DMT are not either. Right. Yeah. What are they seeing, right? Not to be a neuroscientist about it. It's not just what are they seeing.

What are they telling us? Right. When we scientists are trying to study the universe, we are. looking for those other levels. We're not trying to say, this is the level, this is it. Everything else is unknown, right? I really feel that we really no longer need to use the word supernatural. All we should use is the word unknown, right? Not yet understood. Even in the comic books, one of my favorite characters, as you might imagine, is Mr. Fantastic, you know, widely considered as probably the most intelligent person in Marvel Comics, although Shuri, the

the queen of Wakanda might also be there and Tony Stark and whatever. Right. Now he's, you know. Yeah, yeah, I know he's the only. But, but Mr. Fantastic is well known for quoting in his books that magic is a science I do not yet understand. Superman has as one of his weaknesses other than kryptonite magic. Again, he is very susceptible to that, more susceptible than most, because of his, I don't know what, right? But our heroes always have to have an Achilles heel. Otherwise, they're not heroes. They're not interesting. So we have this environment where we are looking beyond. But how much of it was already entered into our brain?

I won't be able to tell you what I had for dinner last Monday, unless I think really hard. But it's in there somewhere, right? in two hours of lack of oxygen, what could have been moving around in that brain to have none? Was it something that this person had seen a long time ago? Yeah, it's usually like dead relatives and your whole life flashing before your eyes.

When somebody has a near-death experience, why do they only see their own relatives? Why don't they see other people? If it were a shared afterlife consciousness. Yeah, it's not entirely fair, though, because, you know, let's say people who believe in Jesus as their God, often will see Jesus in a near-death experience. That's not proof to me that Jesus is real. It's proof that we produce, right? In our brains. In our brains, in our minds, like however you want to sort of frame it,

we're producing a filtered experience, right? It's going to be filtered through whatever we encountered. and then the meaning that we make of it will also be filtered through. What I think is interesting is similarities across cultures with people who are not speaking and across oceans. And for thousands of years, there's been this notion that, you know, we're given some knowledge before we're born and then we forget it and then we're placed here and we have all these experiences. But, you know, any religious tradition that discusses reincarnation, rebirth, right?

A lot of these kind of things come. I mean, you know, Plato, the allegory of the kid, like everything. you see like this is, you know, there's a they might be giant song to completely nerd out called where your eyes don't go. And it's about whatever's behind you that the reality is you actually don't know what is happening until you turn your head and the, you know, the video game gets filled with that screen. No, that's 100% true. And I, and I'm not trying to be unfair. I'm just what I'm trying to say is not at all attacking the folks who had these experiences. I and completely willing to acknowledge that those experiences were real, but within their own minds.

How much of our shared experiences in our lives, right, is reality and how much of it is internal? My kids are unhappy with me when I quote this because I didn't read the entire Harry Potter series, okay? I only read, the only book I read in its entirety was the last book. So when I quote it, they're like, how, how, you know, you don't have the authority. That's right. But actually there is one line in that last book that I always quote because I think it is so relevant to these kinds of conversations. At the, toward the end of the book, the protagonist asks a ghost, basically, right? Is this real or is this all happening inside my head?

To which the ghost replies, of course it is all happening inside your head. But why on earth should that mean that it is not real? So if I were to be as scientifically honest and open as possible about it, I am willing to say that that was a real experience. It's just the reality that we did not. So if you think about that all the people who have had common experiences, right, they are, I'll bet you all of them were told that there was something that that they had. have a common experience that they haven't experienced yet, right? From a medical point of view, I have understood that people with near-death experiences

also have common things that happen to their biologies. Their brains run out of oxygen. And for example, or their neural activity starts to decline. Things start firing in different parts of the brains that ordinarily don't. But if you're declared dead, I wouldn't expect for you to come back with weeks of information and downloaded information also about the nature of time, religion, spiritual existence. We wouldn't expect it, but it could be in there. But we have to also then allow for, you know, what many people call a download of information. We can. Because Elizabeth Crone was

dead on the pavement after being struck by lightning, you know, literally down for a couple minutes and came back with enough information to fill hours of reporting about the things that she experienced, the things she saw, right? So that obviously time's not linear. I don't need to tell you that. But just the notion that you can have an experience where you are watching your body doing things from some persinium that I don't understand, you are hearing conversations that are not in the room that you're in. That's why Bruce Grayson started his research. He said, I had a patient tell me the tie I was wearing yesterday when she was in a coma. And he said I could not explain that as a young psychiatry intern. He also said that she told me I had a stain on my tie that I got from

lunch, but the tie was underneath the coat. And she saw it. Isn't that something? No, it's not. I love that. Yeah, but that's not, that's a download of information. How does our brain work, I think, is the key question. If we can understand how our brain filters information from our senses, that would be the scientific information. My brain clearly doesn't need me to be in it. Is the only thing I can like. That is an explanation. That's not the only explanation.

Okay. Okay. I really think that there is a way to process that. Now, obviously, there has not yet been, say, funding from some science institution to do it. Your other options aren't so good. It's that my brain has tentacles that reach through the walls. Right. And what's wrong with that?

Nothing. Right. We have this thing called quantum entanglement. Correct. does not depend on how close we are or how connected we are to something at any given moment. But we don't understand it. That's a very, very, you know, spooky action. Sure. That's a whole other story. It's all strings. Yeah. Well, I don't know about that either. The string theory has issues as well. But see, that's the whole point, right? These unknowns fill me with

wonder and joy. Let's go back to the octopus tentacles for a second. I feel like we glazed over that. That's another option. That is just, yes, that is a hypothesis. that somehow, right, we are connected. Say it. Say the whole sentence. Somehow I'm in a room and I have a perception of something that's happening through a wall while I'm dead. Because he said we're all connected in some way. Yeah. And then what you have to confirm scientifically is whether or not that connection exists. Correct. Well, something's existing. I am more willing to say, that something appears to exist and that our brains might be doing. There are coincidences that do happen, right?

Our current, the president of the United States changes hands in 2025 and six months later tariffs are very high, right? Now, that is something that you can probably have some kind of. Is this a causation correlation conversation? Yes, it is. Right. Now, our current president, a president showed up in 2025 and the Dodgers win the World Series the second time. Are they connected? Right? Some people would say so, but other people say that's

just a coincidence. And the odds are it is just coincidence. There are so many coincidences this world. Have you ever heard of paradolia? No. Okay. It's a fancy word for saying you see faces in spaghetti. Oh, yeah, because we're pattern, we're pattern recognizers and it's it's in our human nature to see face. I see faces in the clouds. Right, right, right. If you see 20,000 patterns, I saw this number once. I have to find the reference, but if you see 20,000 patterns, on average, one of them is actually causation.

It's something like 20,000 to one. And again, I wish I could find that. I only read it once. I only read it once. So I have to find the paper to confirm it and things like that. But it's a matter of neuroscience and our ability to see patterns and things like that. And how many of them are actually causal

is a very, very small percentage. So with that in mind, we need to confirm that that one in 20,000 or one in whatever thousand it is is actually positive, right? And even let me bring, if we're talking about a near death experience or a true death experience, what is death? When are we dead? When are we dead? If I'm, if I'm, if I. Two hours zipped up in a body bag, that's dead.

Probably. That feels probably. But also some people might say, oh, there was a. Faint pulse and his body could be in a state such that they couldn't find a pulse and blah. I mean, there's- Which raises the question how many people are being declared dead? That's what my mother said. She said they put people in the ground. There could be a lot of people that we're losing.

Well, we have these things in our medical system called do not resuscitate orders. Yeah. And that's because we feel that there is some level of life that is not worth preserving. I could be on a ventilator and breathing forever. I could be have some sort of a heart machine and have my heartbeat forever. Am I still alive? Right. So now our definitions become a little clogged.

Well, okay. Go ahead. And no, no, don't apologize. This is a very controversial thing. And I'd like to say that, right? when when people are put on ventilators because their lungs are failing and so forth, right? What they're hoping is that when your human body is relieved of the burden of having to breathe, then the rest of your body can then heal, right, can slowly regenerate over time.

Sometimes it's weak, sometimes it's months, but many times also it doesn't work, right? And so unfortunately that happens. But during that time, it's not that, oh, we, put somebody on a machine and then we walk away and have a vacation. They're being monitored many times a day and things have to be kept clean so that there's no infection. Things have to be this. It's not easy to keep someone in that state. Not at all. So during that time, when you're not breathing for yourself, are you still alive? I think so. But how, at what point you say, you know what, it's time to let go. And that, I think, is that definition. So please tell me what you think about

Well, this leads to, you know, a satellite conversation about, I guess it's about consciousness. It's about agency. You know, the telepathy tapes podcast kind of took the world by storm. I haven't heard them. I'm sorry. I can do my best to sum it up. You know, one aspect of the telepathy tapes is if you take non-speaking autistic individuals, there are certain individuals who seem to have.

have, you know, a much more elaborate consciousness system and communication ability that in many cases was left ignored or untapped, largely because culturally, we have not known what to do historically with people who don't fit, you know, a certain, you know. So, you know, the example I give, there's someone in my family, you know, two generations ago who, you know, he was placed in a facility because that's what was done in the 40s and 50s. And what we're now learning, is that there are people who can communicate and who have elaborate intelligence and, you know, consciousness inside of a body

that may not be communicating, let's say, verbally. That's a general thing. That feels really good, yeah. It feels great. But the notion that is discussed in the telepathy tapes is that, you know, there's some, and this is just what, you know, people talk about, that there's some plane of consciousness

where non-verbal autistic individuals can go and that communication can be shared there in ways that seems to not be explainable by other rules that we have about communication, how information exists. It's very interesting, and it's not, you know, season one, we had Dr. Diane Hennessy on and some of her research is in season one,

and Julia Mossbridge is the cognitive science head for season two, But I think the question, you know, that what you're talking about brings up is, you know, if I don't know what someone else's, let's say, experiences of their consciousness versus what, you know, is being reported, you know, are there ways to test, right? these kinds of things, and that's sort of what Julia Moss, what Dr. Mossbridge is trying to do. You know, are there ways to examine how do people know things that are happening? You know, how do people, because if you look at, let's say you give people, you know, a choice of five numbers, you know, you're holding up one of them behind a screen that, you know, if you're holding up five numbers, they've got a 20% chance, right, by chance of being right. Why should they be statistically significantly accurate 40 to 50% of the time? Right? This is the Stargate remote viewing.

This is the Stargate remote viewing, which, you know, Russia had been working on for decades. Like, Russia very early on was like, we will train people to remote view. I'm very skeptical about remote viewing. Didn't work real well, considering what happened to Russia, yeah, or that Russian government. But it is a technique that is not only utilized, like, by our military and our government, but, you know, we spoke to Angela Ford, who worked as a seer, you know, or remote viewer for for almost a decade in her time, you know, in the army or in the government for almost 20 years, you know, what could possibly be going on when we talk about, again, these are similar.

It's consciousness that exists in some other place which the Akashic records and many ancient traditions say. Information is just out there, right? We just need to tune in. And some people are better tuned than others, right? I'm not good at a lot of things. And I'm very good at other things, maybe there are people who are good at tuning into something that is very hard to measure. What an interesting idea. I'm thinking right now, actually, of brain computer interfaces, which currently exist right now. Yeah. And it is amazing to have, I've seen some footage of this, which, you know, just obviously there must have been cherry picked or cut or something, where someone with something like ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, who cannot move anything. They put a brain

computer interface on, find a way, and then they're able on a screen to just think and say, you know, and say something, actually, you know, something that is meaningful to a family member. And they just, you know, it's so emotional. They break down. It's like, it's amazing. They felt and knew all along that there was something going on in there, but they just couldn't get it out. This is known well, well known science that now people have, people use brain computer, your brain, you know, human computer interfaces, whatever we want to call them. And they do any work. And now the goal is to make them so that they're portable or that they're useful, that they don't need invasive surgery

or anything like that to be implanted, blah, blah, blah. There's lots of cool stuff going on. So is there some other level you're hoping that there is that extra step? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, on the electromagnetic spectrum that we understand, there's seems to be nothing that allows that. We would have found that bite. We have very good, very, very, very good detectors. Could it be gravitational waves, for example? Also not. We now have gravitational wave detectors that can measure the change in length or width or width or height by a fraction of a proton's width, right? And we've never seen anything like that amongst all of us. So that it's not that either. It's also important for us to keep in mind

if we're trying to use a data set that complies to all of the things we needed to comply for, we actually may be looking at something that we don't yet understand. We must acknowledge this. Right. So like what I would suggest is, you know, if the basis of some sort of telepathy or intuition, you know, or, you know,

someone's caregiver, you know, being able to communicate with someone on a level that we don't understand. You know, my kind of working amateur hypothesis is that there's something going on with a relationship that is very, very hard to replicate. It's very hard to replicate in a laboratory setting. And it's extremely hard to replicate

if it's not something that's consistent or reliable or predictable. If it fluctuates by, does someone need to go to the bathroom? If it fluctuates by the way the weather made them feel. You know, like this is a population, and I'm not just talking about autism, but I'm talking about people who seem to be tapped into something else.

It's a population that doesn't obey, you know, the rules that you and I would devise for an IRB approved study. Well said. My wife or my kids can tell what I'm thinking, like word for word, if I raise my eyebrow a particular way compared to another way. What do you mean? That's if they've been watching me. They know me for a long. long, long time. The IRB is not going to approve me being put in a locked room for 30 years and having people watch me. But if somebody like my daughter or my wife were to, you know, see my facial expression or a finger twitch or one little thing, they know what I meant. Right. In the context of the moment, right? It might not be completely empty. That's entanglement, right?

I mean, it's a special kind of one. Correct. It is definitely an entangled situation. We have have so many connections. Great. So magnify that, right? Yeah. Magnify it and make it, you know, as big as you want. How big can we make it? Right.

Can the physics, right, of making things big limits our mathematical or physical ability to think how big of that is? Can it be as big based on our current physics as the world or the solar system or the galaxy? I am so sorry that that unfortunately, based on what we know is not there. But you and me, you know, eventually, you know, if I come back every day for the next 30 years, I'll raise an eyebrow. You'll be like, yeah, that's right. I'll be like, let me out.

That's kind of what I think. I believe that the data can't yet capture all the complexities of the inputs that we have received under those circumstances. Yeah, all said. And then when we get to those one in 20,000 or zillion, you know, coincidences, and then we say, oh, we ascribe that meaning. We have to be very careful. We're going to hit pause here. There is so much more in part two of our conversation with Dr. Liu that we hope you will stay tuned for. Does artificial intelligence possess consciousness?

What does it mean when we're drawn towards someone else romantically? Is it chemical? Is it spiritual? Also, the many worlds theory. Could a multitude of universes actually exist? In addition, we'll talk about psychedelics, the overlap between DMT and near-death experiences, and human variability in physiology that might inform ways to treat trauma. All of that and more in part two of our conversation with Dr. Liu. Check us out on substack. Biolicbrackdown.com. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time. She's got a neuroscience Ph.D. or two. One, fix you. And now she's going to break down and fake it down.